An unforgettable regret

For every choice we make, we leave another possibility behind.

1

They came back with the hot flashes—those old leftover longings for a child of my own. I have been surprised by them. It is not a constant, this longing. It is a whisper of what it once was, but it is there in a given day or hour: the sorrow of not having a kid of my genes to grow old with. Is that corny or narcissistic or somehow spoiled, given the other things I am blessed with—a husband I love, work I love? I don’t care. The child lust is in there, surging along with my internal temperature, the menopausal sweats and regrets hitting me in knee-buckling tandem.

I thought I was done with this. A decade ago, at age 45, my biological clock struck midnight. By that point, I had done it all, tried everything to get pregnant. Granted, I’d gotten a late start. After years of ambivalence about motherhood, I finally began trying to have a baby in my late 30s. Like many in my baby boom generation, I was afraid I’d get trapped in the old female roles. I had already been married for 14 years, a complicated, passionate marriage to a charismatic handful of a husband. Finally, things had quieted down enough for me to want a baby, to want to risk bringing one into my life.

My writing career was on track. I was making a living. If I got divorced or was widowed, I figured I could support this child. I was ready. Only problem was, like many of us who had delayed motherhood, I couldn’t get pregnant—it was the first thing I ever failed at. That’s what it felt like—failure—and the more my baby desire was thwarted, the larger it grew. I attempted all that the fertility wizards had to offer, and then, by 44 or 45, exhausted, bank account depleted, marriage taxed, sex life out the window, I knew it was over. I closed the book, grieved to my bones and began reembracing what was left of my life: my marriage and the four stepsons who had come with it. They had been a joyous part of my existence, big and noisy when I was a young bride, responsible men now, all married themselves, all beginning to have children of their own. Now that my husband and I had grandchildren, it didn’t make sense to turn around and pursue adoption. We had this growing family, and as I healed from the infertility wars, I was able to rejoin it full tilt.

I felt a rare peace with my choices as I headed into my 50s. And then with the first hot flash, at the relatively late age of 54, the peace was shattered. My babies, my kids. Where were they? My friends were shipping theirs off to college, walking them down the aisles. I wanted that. I even wanted the empty nest, because I knew there would still be someone out there who was part me, someone to carry on the line.

I have swatted it away, this longing. I’ve made mental lists of all I ought to be grateful for. And yet it pops up unbidden, when I’m sitting at my computer, walking my dog on the beach, nestling next to my forever husband—a sharp stab of regret. How could I not have seen these feelings coming? Why hadn’t I played my hand differently?

It has taken me a long time to realize that it is OK to feel this way, OK to have a regret as big as the sky—not always, just on certain days—and that the measure of any of us is how we live with our regrets, whatever they might be. Mine is about not having kids. I have friends who have the same regret. We talk about it, laugh ruefully at the memory of our driven, feisty younger selves so determined not to be saddled with babies. I have other friends who regret their career or love choices, feel as if they played it too safe, stayed in boring jobs or lukewarm marriages for security or out of insecurity.

No one gets to a certain point in life without regrets. The question is how we assimilate them into our souls, how we forgive ourselves for what we did or didn’t do. How we wrestle with the questions. Why didn’t I start trying for a baby earlier, when I was presumably more fertile? True, I don’t know if that would have made a difference. But I do know something that wasn’t often said in those days: Fertility declines with age, quite sharply after 35. “So, hotshot,” I ask myself, “what was really so important back then to keep you from baby making, from motherhood?”

I thought I’d put such questions to bed nearly a decade ago. But I’ve discovered that you don’t do it once, apologize to yourself and have it over. “Oops—sorry, heart. I didn’t get you any kids to drool over and nurture.” No, it isn’t a one-time thing. It isn’t even a process moving you toward some kind of closure. There is no closure, and we shouldn’t pretend there is. I will regret—gracefully, I hope, in fits and starts, ebbs and flows—not having had children, for always. No time limit. I’m not talking about whining or wallowing, but simply living beside the sadness, which some days is huge, some days minor, rather than pretending it away.

There is so much written now about the cheery aging woman who climbs Mount Kilimanjaro and has young lovers and is taut and alluring and together, a woman whose insides are as erased of regret as her face is erased of lines. I see her beaming at me from magazines and book jackets. I look at these faces and read these stories and think: Get real. Tell me what happened along the way. What regrets have you? What would you have done differently?

I think that older women owe an accounting of our regrets to those coming behind, instead of presenting a cheerful mask. We owe it to them because such an accounting might shed some light on the tough decisions they are in the throes of making. Not that any one life is better than another. Not that all of my peers who ended up childless share my regret. Some, I know, do not. Some made the decision not to have children and have never looked back, going on to celebrate achievements in other areas—artistic, athletic, romantic. Some tried to get pregnant, as I did, and when that pregnancy was not forthcoming happily adopted. Some went the infertility distance with me and walked away, battle-scarred but not overtly regretful. Well, I am regretful.

What I would say to younger women is take your own measure, sooner rather than later. If you want kids, pay attention. Figure out a way to get them, preferably with a loving mate. Not always easy to find, I know. But even without a partner and a reserve of money, even without any of that, if you want a baby, make the hard choice to have one and do what you can to get one. I want to say, too, that it’s not the end of the world if you don’t have them—of course it’s not the end of the world. You’ll learn to live with your own regrets, about this, that or the other thing. That, finally, is what life is about: The regrets, when acknowledged, give a sharp kick to life’s joys and make them all the sweeter.